The New Times
by walela
Summary: Sin is finally defeated, and it's cycle of rebirth has ended. Twenty years later, there is a new threat upon Spira, and one girl's life is going to change forever.


Title: A New Time  
  
Author: Walela  
  
Rating: PG for now.  
  
Summery: Sin is finally defeated, and it's cycle of rebirth has ended. Twenty years later, there is a new threat upon Spira, and one girl's life is going to change forever.  
  
A/N: I haven't finished the game yet, so I'm not sure who survives at the end. (Don't spoil it for me either or I'll sick my fire-breathing penguin after you!) I think anyone with common sense knows I don't own FFX. Erkeni is my original character though. Enjoy the story!  
  
There are some days that are just too beautiful to be actual. The sun shines from behind cottony clouds, and the sand underfoot is comfortable and warm, and to look out into the seas is to look out into eternity painted cerulean. Young children play on beaches, and birds game above head. Lovers walked amongst trees and grass, lost in each other. Wise elders sit under the shade of a mossy tilka tree, watching the young pass by, humming content songs from their own childhood.  
  
But there was once a time where no one could find any joy in the simplicity of it. That was a time where all of Spira lived in fear. They could never make a home in fear of it's destruction. Families were torn apart and many lives sacrificed. All of this caused by a creature known simply as Sin.  
  
But that was almost twenty years ago....  
  
Lively music and voices carried from the depths of the village out into the expanse of ocean. The people of Lu'uci, a small isle off of Besaid, were in the midst of celebration. But for what, Erkeni was not sure.  
  
A wedding probably. Or maybe the Besaid Aurochs actually won a blitzball tournament. She laughed softly at that last thought. Or not...  
  
The raven haired girl sat on the wet beach, drawing in the sand and listening to the jubilation emanating from the village. Maybe she could get an idea of what was going on. Suddenly, a loud shout erupted from the mass of voices. Erkeni could only sigh. Whatever was going on, she wanted to be apart of it, but she knew that wasn't going to happen. The entire village, the ones she use to call 'friends', kept her in isolation. And all because of who she was: the daughter of two unsents.  
  
She sighed again. I'd be more respected if I were Al Bhed, for Yevon's sake.  
  
Erkeni didn't hold much contempt for most of the villagers. Only one, the one she trusted with her being, the one she thought could never betray her.  
  
Oh, how wrong I was...  
  
His name was Srade, a young blitzball player with great potential from Besaid. After their last tournament, he came here because the beaches on Lu'uci were the greatest, next to Luca, for practicing blitz. Thankfully few people knew that.  
  
The two met when Erkeni was only fifteen. Every morning, before the sun came up, she'd walk in the surf, collecting colorful shells and sparkling stones. One morning in the middle of the third season, she didn't even make it beyond the dunes, for she realized that she wasn't going to be alone. Disappointment flooded her, until she got a better look at the young man. His tanned skin and red-gold hair accented each other beautifully, and he moved about with his blitzball with grace. Erkeni couldn't see his eyes, but she imagined them to be a bright, beautiful green. She thanked the powers that be for her inability to sleep mornings, and continued to watch the stunning creature before her from behind the dunes.  
  
She had no idea how long she was watching the boy, but her eyes grew wide and heart dropped as she saw him get ready to go...to go where ever he came from. The thought that he'd leave, and she would never get the chance to meet him made her jump up and quickly follow. When she was close enough so that he could hear her, but not think that she was following him, she gave a timid 'hey'.  
  
From that point, the grew to be friends. Erkeni got past her attraction to him. He became too much like a brother to her to for there to be anything more. Every morning she'd go to the beach, and he'd be there. Sometimes Srade would teach her a little blitzball, and other times they'd just walk and talk. That was Erkeni's mistake. She has talked maybe a bit too much.  
  
It was about a year they knew each other before she told him about her parents. Her parents died at the hands of a creature known by past generations as Sin. But after it's final defeat twenty years ago, there were no more who desired to become summoners, so her parents were never sent. It was not long after Erkeni was born, that a surviving summoner, from before Sin's fall, came to her home outside of Luca. Somehow, he discovered the facts about her parents. Since they had a child, they had no desire to be sent until she had grown, but the summoner blatantly ignored their wishes. Erkeni was placed in the hands of a friend who had taken her to Lu'uci, where no one would know about her parents.  
  
Suddenly, Srade was not as understanding as Erkeni thought him to be. After telling him, he just stared at him with a shocked expression, that eventually morphed into disgust. He stood up, stepping backwards.  
  
"Srade, what's wrong?"  
  
"Don't come near me."  
  
"Srade..."  
  
"Stay away from me..."  
  
"Srade, don't do this to me."  
  
"What about what you have done to me. You lied to me."  
  
"I never lied."  
  
"You're one of *them*. You're an unsent. Keep away from me you freak."  
  
That exchange of words would live forever in her mind. Erkeni could still hear the disgust and hatred in her former friend's voice. He was wrong, thought. Just because she was born of unsents, doesn't mean she was unsent. She lived just as he did. And she felt just as he did. And now, the betrayal made her feel as if she could die.  
  
It wasn't long before Srade let her secret get around. From that point on, she became a cast away. To everyone else, she was lower than fiends that lived under the ground, and that would never change for her. If she could, she'd get away, but so few boats came to the ports in Lu'uci, and the one's who did charged a pretty gil to take on passengers. So for the next four years, Erkeni would live as a hated outcast.  
  
And for those four years, those words would echo in her mind  
  
"...you freak."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
A/N: Soooo...how did you like it? I'm not really sure what's supposed to happen to people who are 'unsent', but in this story, the capable of doing everything that a living person could do. I know it seems to have nothing to do with FFX yet, but it will in the next two chapters. I'm only going to keep posting if I get feedback, so please read and review.  
  
Also, for all you Aurikku fans, I invite you to join the Aurikku mailing list.  
  
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Aurikku 


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